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Claire Montialoux (CREST) – “Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality”, joint work with Ellora Derenoncourt (Harvard)
Time: 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Date: 5th of June 2018
Place: Room 3001.
Claire Montialoux (CREST) – “Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality”, joint work with Ellora Derenoncourt (Harvard)
Abstract: Racial earnings gaps fell dramatically in the late 1960s. We study the contribution of the federal minimum wage to this decline. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act introduced high federal minimum wages to sectors that were previously uncovered and where women and black workers were overrepresented. We show that this reform increased wages for workers in newly covered industries and that the impact was twice as large for black workers as for white. We find no effect of the reform on employment. The 1966 extension of the minimum wage can explain 25% of the reduction in the racial wage gap in the United States as a whole in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Our findings shed new light on the impacts of labor standards on racial inequality.
Laurent Davezies (CREST – ENSAE), Arne Uhlendorff (CREST – ENSAE) & Yannick Guyonvarch (CREST – ENSAE)
Sponsors:
CREST
Lunch registration:
food provided, no registration